Bread and Meat
by v a p e w a v e N I C O
Summary: Kotori has a very serious moral dilemma to consider. Thankfully, Hannibal Lector is there to give her some advice.


AN: I wouldn't quite call this a request, but I won't say it was 100% my idea either.

The café Kotori worked at was famous. Not just for its adorable, hardworking, and incredibly charming legendary maid Minalisky who could cheer up even the most burnt-out girl after cram school; but also for the cuisine, which, according to one upperclassman, was the best food in Japan. Kotori had never tried it— it was a bit out of her price range, and she preferred sweets to the strangely gorgeous carved meats, but she took the girl's word for it. The cook himself was a recluse. Always working alone, in the back, with only Nico to help prep the dishes and carry the orders and plates from kitchen to window, where Kotori would then fetch it.

It wasn't until Umi and Honoka had come in that fateful day, that Kotori had met the chef.

"Ah, I need carbs! There's so much studying to do, I'm going to die!" Honoka had her head down on the table, orange hair glinting under the soft ambience lamps. "Why did I put this off…. 300 math problems in a night…. Why did I do this to myself… I wish I could go back in time and hit myself repeatedly…"

Kotori put her hand on Honoka's shoulder. "I'll get you some coffee."

Umi was glared, whether at the mention of carbs or procrastination, Kotori could not tell. "We will be diligent and finish tonight. Do you understand me, Honoka?" Umi had a few of her own worksheets left to do, as she'd spent the last few weeks either in practice for u's or practice for archery, and for the first time was feeling the pressure of a deadline.

Honoka made a noise acknowledging Umi, and lifted her head to view the pile of worksheets. It was… the entirety of paperwork for the unit. Kotori felt a pang of sympathy for the girl, and wondered if it wasn't perhaps mean of them not to let Honoka copy. Kotori still had her own worksheets, and it wasn't as if they would ever need to know these things. Still, she knew Umi would disapprove.

"Can I get my charming, beautiful girls something?"

Red splotches bloomed from Umi's face like red watercolor on a wet canvas. "Um… um…" It was cute, Kotori thought, the way Umi always reacted to her work voice. "I suppose… I might try that steak salad you guys have. I read a review online, some reporter reviewed the place and said it was the best thing you guys have."

"One steak salad for Umi, love of my life, and for Honoka…?"

Honoka gave her a determined, if not slightly desperate look. "Get me all of your bread and all of your coffee."

/

"Nico, do you think it might be wrong, to do something dishonest?"

Nico pushed a plate of blood-red steak at her. It was elegant, somehow, the way the blood soaked into the garnishes. Like a dye. "I guess it would depend on the situation." She was thoughtful, somehow more mature, with her black hair tied back into a bun. "It might be better to tell a lie in some situations to keep someone's feelings from getting hurt. Or you might need to lie to get ahead. It might really hurt someone, too, if you lied to them."

"Hmm."

An older voice came out of the kitchen, soft and accented and male. "Not all lies are bad ones."

"Chef?" Nico raised her eyebrows.

A blaze of fire rose from a pan, meat sizzling in its heated embrace. "Sometimes…" There was a pause, with another leaping flame. "Sometimes lying the very thing needed to get something done."

"W-well…"

"It is merely a thought. Go, and deliver this meat to your friends." Sizzling fired away inside the kitchen again, as if punctuating his sentences with it.

"T-thank you, chef…"

/

"Here we are! All fresh and juicy and rare, just for you. How is the studying going?" She placed the food down carefully, as the plates were very hot, and the plating itself was too delicate to just plop down. Looking up, it did not appear to be going well… Honoka was frantically downloading another calculator app, and Umi herself looked almost stumped.

"How could that be wrong… we have put in all of correct information… there's absolutely no way… it just doesn't make sense how that answer could happen…."

"Guys?"

"It's… we are… preserving…" Both girls bit into their food voraciously, like they hadn't eaten in months. (The salad had been grotesquely beautiful, with vegetables cut into scarlet flowers, seed clusters spread onto the dripping meat like a gory glaze, an extravagant vinaigrette on the side. The bread, was, well, fresh. Nico had proudly told her she'd baked it herself. Both glugged the scalding French press coffee alarmingly fast.)

Kotori glanced at the worksheet; they were on a set of problems that did not make much sense to her, and she had… mostly guessed and gotten lucky, only knowing it was right because she had asked her mother.

"You know… I still have my worksheet, if you guys want to see it for this."

"Ye-"

"No! We will do it ourselves. We can figure this out."

Honoka mouthed, "No we can't", and Umi kicked her under the table.

"I am smarter than this math problem." She stared at it, like a freshman who'd interrupted Eli during a student council meeting. "I am smarter than this!"

"Y-yes, of course."

"They aren't getting it at all, are they? It'll be Umi's first B, ha." Nico sipped at her coffee. "See, if they just failed the test like me, they'd be fine."

"Umi won't let Honoka do that, though…"

"Is Umi making decisions for Honoka, then?" There was that voice again, from beyond the darkness and flames, with the scent of coals and meat clinging to the air like an otherworldly barbeque.

Nico scoffed. "Only when Umi is looking…"

"I find it best when people make their own decisions, don't you?" The voice was closer now, and Kotori could make out chiseled cheekbones from the dim interior. "One's fate should not be determined by another."

Satan must have sounded like this, Kotori thought, smelling of gourmet ingredients and blood as he cajoled Eve into taking the bite of the apple. "Well, um, aren't I deciding Honoka's fate by giving her or not giving her the worksheets? Isn't that wrong, too?"

"I know nothing of these details. I simply know one person is telling another person what to do. Whether you choose to let your friend make the decision for your other friend, or you choose to respect your friend's decision… that, Kotori, that is up to you."

/

They still hadn't gotten the question right, after Kotori came to take their plates away. It had gotten dark, and both girls still had pages and pages of work to do.

"Honoka, hey, come here for a sec, uh," Lying was necessary, right? The very thing to get something done? "Nico wants to ask you something."

Umi looked at Kotori suspiciously. "Since when does Nico ask Honoka for advice?"

"It's very private." Umi gave her a death glare, the one usually reserved for Honoka. Kotori put one knee on Umi's side of the bench, kneeling in close to her friend. Kotori was often told she smelled like an expensive pantry after leaving work, and she hoped that was the case today (rather than blood.) Umi blushed a little, with Kotori so close; Kotori decided to press it a little, with one hand on her shoulder, thumb grazing Umi's long neck. Her lips were touching Umi's hair, almost Umi's ear. "We could talk privately later too, if you wanted."

"Uh. Uh. Uh. Um. Kotori!" Umi sputtered, now beet red. "I. Yes. Okay."

"Thanks, doll." She kissed her on the cheek, as she had done many times before, never thinking too much about it until just this second. "C'mon, Honoka."

Honoka shrugged, not having paid any attention to Kotori or Umi. "Okay."

They walked into the breakroom, Nico texting and frowning. "Hey Nico! What's up?"

"Hey, you did it, I didn't know you had it in you, Kotori."

"Nico?"

Kotori shook her head. "I uh, well. I lied. Here's the worksheets. Don't get them dirty, and meet me before you meet Umi. Put them in your hoodie or something, quick."

"OH MY GOD! YOU JUST SAVED MY LIFE I LOVE YOU SO MUCH." Honoka wrapped her arms around Kotori like a golden retriever jumping up on a beloved friend. "You're the most perfect human being in the world and I will always be in your debt."

Kotori returned the hug with warmth, happy her friend wouldn't fail the math class or spend the night turning her brain into mush over equations she was never going to use again. "Just be quiet and careful now, okay?"

"Okay. I promise! I'll protect it with my life." Honoka gave her a big smile, that she always smiled whenever something good happened. "I won't fail you, Kotori!"

"Oh my goddddd, you guys are gross and it's not even romantic."

Honoka winked. "I love you too, Nico."

Nico scowled harder. "Ugh, I'm going to go do actual work now." She walked back to the kitchen, with the high flames, giving them two middle fingers.

"It's kind of scary back there…."

"You have no idea." She thought of the chef and shuddered. "Anyways, just tell Umi an emergency at the bakery came up, she won't believe you if you say you get sick."

"Yeah… Kotori, you're kind of good at lying, it's impressive."

She had told a lot of lies tonight, hadn't she? "I hadn't meant to, but…"

"Well, just don't make it a habit, I guess." Honoka shrugged. "What about Umi though? She still won't know how to solve that one problem…"

"Don't worry about that. I uh… I'll give her some private tutoring. It would hurt her pride too much to just copy, anyways."

"You're telling me. Anyways, thanks again." Honoka clasped her hands. "You seriously saved my life, I owe you big time."

"Don't worry about it. Now go, copy!"

/

"So you did what your friend wanted, then? You didn't let the other decide for her?"

Kotori jumped. She'd changed back into her street clothes and had one hand out the door, as the chef spoke to her. "I think I did the right thing."

"And your other friend, she is not mad?"

He was somewhere between a teacher and a therapist, Kotori thought. And a very strange one at that. "No, I uh… I lied again. Maybe it was the wrong thing to do. But now both of them are going to get full marks on the homework. And if that means they don't fight or have to take make up tests, then I think the good outweighs the bad."

"All's well that ends well, yes?" The chef was smiling at her, and it was not like a smile anyone had ever giving her. It was not a leering, unpleasant smile the way a man would give a girl, nor the way a friend would smile greeting another friend. It was perhaps the most like a teacher's smile, when one had gotten the right answer.

"Well, I suppose."

"Take this. For all your hard work." From the shadowed hallway, he held out a candied apple. Thick glazed sugar coated the fruit, making it look almost crimson, almost not real. Like something out of a fairy land.

"Thank you, uh, chef?"

He bowed. "Hannibal."

She walked out the door, the cool September air a relief after hours in the restaurant. What a strange man, she thought, and what a bewitching candied apple. Kotori took a bite; the glaze was not overwhelmingly sweet, to her surprise, but held a savory tartness to it. She wondered if he'd used lemon.

Next shift, she'd have to ask what he used for the recipe.


End file.
